Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 285 – Mommy! Are you coming home with us?

Voren didn’t turn around immediately, like turning around meant acknowledging an interruption he hadn’t invited.

"What." Not a question. Barely even a word.

Jasmine stepped closer anyway, careful, like she was approaching something that might startle. "Marigold won’t eat." She kept her voice even, factual, giving him just the information and nothing extra.

"I’ll be there," Voren answered, still not looking at her. He finally got Seraphine to look at him again with soft eyes and he was determined to keep things that way until he figured what happened to the memories they shared before she broke his heart.

His gaze was still on the middle distance somewhere past Seraphine’s shoulder, and Jasmine was smart enough to understand the dismissal for what it was.

But before she turned to go, her gaze moved to Seraphine just long enough. Whatever was in that look didn’t have a clean name. It wasn’t hostility exactly, but it wasn’t warmth either.

It sat somewhere in the complicated middle, layered with things Seraphine didn’t have enough context to fully read yet. Then Jasmine was gone, her footsteps quiet and purposeful back down the hall toward Marigold’s ward.

Voren opened his mouth.

"Who is she?" Seraphine asked first.

Something moved across his face. Not annoyance. More like the recognition that he’d walked himself into this conversation by suggesting friendship, and friendship meant questions, and questions meant he didn’t get to keep all the doors shut anymore.

"And this isn’t the place for it." He glanced down the hallway, the lingering observers, the fluorescent openness of a hospital corridor, the complete absence of privacy. "The park tomorrow, with Marigold. Or my place.

stacked three layers deep. New business ideas that needed developing in the morning, and

Make it the day

hesitation, without making it a negotiation. "I take

on her, that particular steadiness of his that she’d stopped being able to fully dismiss. "You know how careful I am. There are things I can’t go into out in the open." His lips pressed together in a deep thought. "Should I come get

edges, and Seraphine for the first time saw something fragile in

left her mouth when her phone went off in her pocket, buzzing against her palm like it had been waiting for the cue. She glanced

Corvine.

just enough, and answered. "Corvine. I’m just heading out now... don’t worry about

can see what’s going on from here." Corvine’s tone

closed her eyes for exactly one second. "Fine.

the call

was starting to recognize as his version of amusement. "You still can’t fully

Just observation, flat and honest. Like

and didn’t deny it, which was its own

He let it go with the same ease he’d said it. "Since you’re waiting, you might as well wait in Marigold’s

on the little girl’s body. Voren was not known to have a woman, and now he had

hall together. Voren pushed open the ward door and Marigold’s head came up from the pillow so fast it was a

described as unbridled delight, the specific, full-body joy that

of her. "Are you coming home

the correction, but Voren caught her eye and gave a small shake of his head,